As a business owner, or administrator of a non-profit organization, you have many opportunities to contribute to community emergency preparedness, response and recovery.
Stay Informed
Good information allows all community members to make good decisions to help themselves. Review our "Stay Informed" section and make plans to keep yourself informed of critical information. Then contact your local or county emergency management director to find out how organization can help distribute disaster information to your staff, clients and customers. Also encourage those folks to share official confirmed information within their families and neighborhoods.
Encourage Personal Emergency Preparedness
If your employees have family emergency plans, they are more likely to be able to continue to report to work, knowing their families are safe. Share our basic emergency planning tips with your staff, and encourage them to create their family plans. (By the way, is your own family emergency plan up to date?)
Be Flexible with Employees
Some of your employees may be members of the Fire Department or a disaster relief organization. You can support your community by having a consistent policy that allows them to perform these critical volunteer roles while keeping the interests of your organization in mind.
Other employees may have unexpected family considerations in a disaster. Could they bring children or other family members to work? Can you quickly rearrange work schedules to both allow them to work and take care of their families?
Those with Functional or Access Needs
Some of your staff or clients may have disabilities, or other functional or access needs. Wwe have provided links to many more sources of information in our "Your Family, Your Plan" section.
Play a Role in Recovery
The more partners involved in recovery, the faster the community can get back on its feet. If your organization was not badly affected, you could be part of the solution.
Talk to local officials about what the most pressing local needs are. Are there supplies that are needed that your business could provide quickly and at a competitive price? Could you offer temporary storage space for disaster supplies, or lend staff to a volunteer effort? Coordinate with other business and nonprofit leaders to share ideas on how to contribute to community recovery. Check out our Recovery and Help Others sections for resources you may need, or thoughts on how your organization could fit into the recovery effort.